Desperately Seeking Legitimacy: Organizational Identity and Emerging Industries

TLDR

The article investigates how organizational identity forms in emerging industries, arguing it is best understood through temporal and spatial differences. The authors analyze identity by comparing its stability over time and its spatial positioning relative to similar and different firms, using data from the Australian business coaching sector. They find that the interplay of temporal and spatial differences enables firms to construct a legitimate organizational identity.

Abstract

In this article we examine the process of organizational identity formation in emerging industries. We argue that organizational identity is best understood in terms of the relationship between temporal difference (i.e. the performance of a stable identity over time) and spatial difference (i.e. by locating organizational identity in relation to other firms, both similar and different). It is the relationship between these two forms of difference that enables the construction of a legitimate sense of organizational identity. Our discussion is illustrated using empirical material from a study of the emerging industry of business coaching in Australia.